English Poetry 4vwo

Contents

O Romeo, Romeo by William Shakespeare

Annabel Lee by Edgar Allen Poe

On Giles and Joan by Ben Jonson

Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelly

Ozymandias by Smith

The road not taken by Robert Frost’s

Human by The Killers

Five ways to kill a man by Edwin Brock

In Flanders Fields by Lt. Col. John McCrae

Refugee Blues by W.H. Auden

Do not go gentle into that good night by Dylan Thomas

The Sound Collector by Roger McGough

O Romeo, Romeo by William Shakespeare

O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?Deny thy father and refuse thy name.Or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my loveAnd I’ll no longer be a Capulet.‘Tis but thy name that is my enemy:Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.What’s Montague? It is nor hand nor footNor arm nor face nor any other partBelonging to a man. O be some other name.What’s in a name? That which we call a roseBy any other name would smell as sweet;So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,Retain that dear perfection which he owesWithout that title. Romeo, doff thy name,And for that name, which is no part of thee,Take all myself.

Annabel Lee by Edgar Allen Poe

It was many and many a year ago,    In a kingdom by the sea, That a maiden there lived whom you may know    By the name of Annabel Lee; And this maiden she lived with no other thought    Than to love and be loved by me. 

I was a child and she was a child,    In this kingdom by the sea, But we loved with a love that was more than love—    I and my Annabel Lee— With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven    Coveted her and me. 

And this was the reason that, long ago,    In this kingdom by the sea, A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling    My beautiful Annabel Lee; So that her highborn kinsmen came    And bore her away from me, To shut her up in a sepulchre    In this kingdom by the sea. 

The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,    Went envying her and me— Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,    In this kingdom by the sea) That the wind came out of the cloud by night,    Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee. 

But our love it was stronger by far than the love    Of those who were older than we—    Of many far wiser than we— And neither the angels in Heaven above    Nor the demons down under the sea Can ever dissever my soul from the soul    Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; 

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams    Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes    Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side    Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,    In her sepulchre there by the sea—    In her tomb by the sounding sea.

Questions

1. Do you get a picture in your mind of the speaker? What is this image?2. What is the setting? 3. What lines inform you of Annabel’s death? Quote the line. 4. According to the speaker, why did Annabel die? Put the lines that

support this answer. 5. What line addresses the young age of the two loves? Quote the line6. What is a synonym for the word “angel”? 7. Where does the speaker spend most of this time after the death of

Annabel? 8. What names does the speaker refer Annabel as?

On Giles and Joan by Ben Jonson

Who says that Giles and Joan at discord be?Th’observing neighbors no such mood can see.Indeed, poor Giles repents he married ever;But that his Joan doth too. And Giles would never,By his free-will, be in Joan’s company:No more would Joan he should. Giles riseth early,And having got him out of doors is glad;The like is Joan: butturning home is sad;And so is Joan. Oftimes when Giles doth findHarsh sights at home, Giles wisheth he were blind;All this doth Joan: or that his long-yearn’d lifeWere quite out-spun; the like wish hath his wife.The children that he keeps, Giles swears are noneOf his getting; and so swears his Joan.In all affections she concurreth still.If now, with man and wife, to will and nillThe self-same things, a note of concord be:I know no other couple better can agree!

In your own words write a short summary of what you think this poem is about.

Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelly

I met a traveller from an antique landWho said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stoneStand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,Tell that its sculptor well those passions readWhich yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:And on the pedestal these words appear:'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'Nothing beside remains. Round the decayOf that colossal wreck, boundless and bareThe lone and level sands stretch far away.

Questions

1. Where do you think the encounter between the speaker and traveller takes place?

2. How does Shelly create a negative impression of the ruler Ozymandias in this poem?

3. There’s a lot of alliteration and rhyming in the poem. What do you make of all this repetition? Is Shelly trying to say something with this?

4. What is the central theme of the poem? 5.

Ozymandias by Smith

In Egypt's sandy silence, all alone,Stands a gigantic Leg, which far off throwsThe only shadow that the Desert knows:—"I am great OZYMANDIAS," saith the stone,"The King of Kings; this mighty City shows"The wonders of my hand."— The City's gone,—Nought but the Leg remaining to discloseThe site of this forgotten Babylon.

We wonder,—and some Hunter may expressWonder like ours, when thro' the wildernessWhere London stood, holding the Wolf in chace,He meets some fragment huge, and stops to guessWhat powerful but unrecorded raceOnce dwelt in that annihilated place.

The road not taken by Robert Frost’s

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

Questions

1. Do you think the road the speaker took was really the less travelled one? Why?

2. What do you think the chances are that the speaker will go back and try the other path? Use quotes to support your answer.

3. Do you think the speaker regrets his choice, or is happy about it? Use quotes to support your answer.

4. How can this poem be misinterpreted?

Human by The Killers

I did my best to noticeWhen the call came down the lineUp to the platform of surrenderI was brought but I was kindAnd sometimes I get nervousWhen I see an open doorClose your eyesClear your heartCut the cord

Are we human?Or are we dancer?My sign is vitalMy hands are coldAnd I’m on my kneesLooking for the answerAre we human?Or are we dancer?

Pay my respects to grace and virtueSend my condolences to goodGive my regards to soul and romanceThey always did the best they couldAnd so long to devotionYou taught me everything I knowWave goodbyeWish me wellYou’ve got to let me go

Will your system be alrightWhen you dream of home tonight?There is no message we’re receivingLet me know , is your heart still beating.

Question

What do you think this song is saying?

Five ways to kill a man by Edwin Brock,

There are many cumbersome ways to kill a man.You can make him carry a plank of woodto the top of a hill and nail him to it. To do thisproperly you require a crowd of peoplewearing sandals, a cock that crows, a cloakto dissect, a sponge, some vinegar and oneman to hammer the nails home.

Or you can take a length of steel,shaped and chased in a traditional way,and attempt to pierce the metal cage he wears.But for this you need white horses,English trees, men with bows and arrows,at least two flags, a prince, and acastle to hold your banquet in.

Dispensing with nobility, you may, if the windallows, blow gas at him. But then you needa mile of mud sliced through with ditches,not to mention black boots, bomb craters,more mud, a plague of rats, a dozen songsand some round hats made of steel.

In an age of aeroplanes, you may flymiles above your victim and dispose of him bypressing one small switch. All you thenrequire is an ocean to separate you, twosystems of government, a nation's scientists,several factories, a psychopath andland that no-one needs for several years.

These are, as I began, cumbersome waysto kill a man. Simpler, direct, and much more neatis to see that he is living somewhere in the middleof the twentieth century, and leave him there. 

1. How does this poem make you feel?

2. Can you refer each verse to a certain event in history?

3. What does the poem Five Ways to Kill a Man say about the survival of the human race?

In Flanders Fields by Lt. Col. John McCrae

Questions

1. Which war is McCrae writing about?

2. Who are the Dead in the poem?

3. How old do you think they were?

4. Why did McCrae choose to write this poem as if it were spoken by the dead?

5. Who are the dead speaking to?

Refugee Blues by W.H. Auden

Say this city has ten million souls,Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes:Yet there's no place for us, my dear, yet there's no place for us.

Once we had a country and we thought it fair,Look in the atlas and you'll find it there:We cannot go there now, my dear, we cannot go there now.

In the village churchyard there grows an old yew,Every spring it blossoms anew:Old passports can't do that, my dear, old passports can't do that.

The consul banged the table and said,"If you've got no passport you're officially dead":But we are still alive, my dear, but we are still alive.

Went to a committee; they offered me a chair;Asked me politely to return next year:But where shall we go to-day, my dear, but where shall we go to-day?

Came to a public meeting; the speaker got up and said;"If we let them in, they will steal our daily bread":He was talking of you and me, my dear, he was talking of you and me.

Thought I heard the thunder rumbling in the sky;It was Hitler over Europe, saying, "They must die":O we were in his mind, my dear, O we were in his mind.

Saw a poodle in a jacket fastened with a pin,Saw a door opened and a cat let in:But they weren't German Jews, my dear, but they weren't German Jews.

Questions

1. How does this poem make you feel?

2. The way the speaker addresses the reader as “my dear” makes us feel?

3. The speaker says that “Once we had a country and we thought it fair” What does that mean?

4. “They will steal our daily bread” refers to?

5. Why does the speaker mention a cat and a poodle in the last stanza?

6. This poem was written in 1939. Do you think it is still valid today? Explain your answer.

Do not go gentle into that good night by Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,Old age should burn and rave at close of day;Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,Because their words had forked no lightning theyDo not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how brightTheir frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sightBlind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on that sad height,Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.Do not go gentle into that good night.Rage, rage against the dying of the light. 

Who is the speaker addressing in the poem?

What regrets does each kind of man have as he comes to the end of his life?

How does the repetition of “Do not go gentle into that good night” and “ Rage, rage against the dying of the light” make you feel as a reader?

Teacher’s key

Annabel Lee

1. Personal answer2. Kingdom by the sea3. Lines 15 and 26 “…chilling and killing…” 4. Lines 11 and 12 “…went envying her and me…yes-that was the reason

(as all men know)…” 5. Line 7 “…I was a child, and she was a child…”6. Seraphs7. Down by the side of Annabel’s grave8. beautiful, maiden, Annabel Lee, child, her, darling, my life, my bride

Ozymandias

1. Somewhere in a desert, although he never actually says Egypt.

2. Shelly describes the face of Ozymandias asHalfsunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frowned and wrinkled lip and sneer of cold commandThese two lines are packed with negative vocabulary which creates a negative impression of Ozymandias.

3. It may suggest the idea that history is repetition, what goes around comes around again.

4. Man’s excessive pride will lead to his inevitable fall and decline in power.

The Road Not Taken

1. Personal answer

2. No, the speaker at one stage thought he may go back, but now realizes that he probably won’t.“Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. “

3. “I shall be telling this with a sigh”The speaker feels neither happy nor sad about his decision. He comes to the conclusion that life is chance. There was no path, no choice. That’s a fallacy that people have in order to make themselves feel in control, whereas in reality we have no control over our lives.

4. A lot of people assume that this poem is about having a choice and making a difficult decision that most would shy away from.

Five Ways To Kill A Man

1. Personal answer

2. The crucifixionWar of the Roses, medievalWorld War 220th century, modern living

3. The Human race continues to finds ways to kill one another, maybe the best thing for human kind is time. We will eventually wipe ourselves out.

Refugee Blues

1. Personal answer

2. It makes us feel included in the poem, part of the story.

3. That once they lived in a country that they thought had a democracy that worked and was fair to all.

4. The refugees will come into the country and take over the jobs, working maybe for less, leaving the other people without money to live. Also a reference to Jesus Christ, daily bread.

5. The cat and poodle are worth more than the Jews. They have more rights.

6. Personal answer

In Flanders’s Field

1. World War 1

2. The Allied soldiers

3. Young men, late teens, early twenties, some as young as 14

4. The dead no longer have a voice, he is giving them a voice.

5. They are speaking to the living, to you and I. They are telling us never to forget the horrors of war, or they will never rest.